THE EFFICIENCY OF SCOTTISH ACUTE HOSPITALS - AN APPLICATION OF DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS

Measurement of the efficiency of health services would aid the promoti on of a better allocation of health care resources. Economic analysis suggests a number of ways of defining and measuring efficiency. Howeve r, this rarely informs measures used in health service management. Thi s paper looks at the potential for the use in the United Kingdom's Nat ional Health Service of the linear programming based method of data en velopment analysis (DEA). DEA is applied to data from 75 UK acute hosp itals. The results demonstrate the capacity of DEA to produce a user-f riendly array of results, based on sound theoretical underpinnings. Th ese range from the measurement of relative efficiencies to quantified suggestions as to how hospitals may improve efficiency, by examining b oth their own efficiency and that of comparable units. Information is provided both about individual hospitals and the sample as a whole. DE A is also able to distinguish between hospitals demonstrating differin g returns to scale. Our findings suggest that, although still very muc h under development, DEA is usable and, given the weakness of current means of measuring efficiency in the National Health Service, that DEA has a strong claim for further consideration.